eCommerce is an arena that’s always evolving. As your competitors discover new ways to bring in business, you’ll need to be right there innovating and following the latest eCommerce trends so you don’t get left in the dust.
Staying up-to-date on the current trends in eCommerce will help keep your eCommerce business optimized. Here are a few prominent trends in the eCommerce industry:
1. Increased Integration Through Social Media
The number of potential customers on social media sites is immense. This is one of the greatest and latest eCommerce trends. In 2020, more than 3.6 billion people were on at least one social network, and experts expect that number to rise to nearly 4.41 billion by the year 2025.
It’s little wonder that one of the many eCommerce business trends includes the use of social media to market products. Beyond marketing, some social networks have stepped up when it comes to providing businesses with a way to sell products directly through their platforms.
Take features like Instagram Shopping, for example. Instagram shopping allows customers to find your brand on Instagram, then make purchases right at the moment of discovery. This means that brand new customers who stumbled upon one of your ads for the first time can select a product and checkout from within the app. More importantly, you can create Instagram-exclusive store pages and collections for prospects to browse, and even use the feature to reveal new products via in-app events, or make sales through live streams.
The advantage that comes with this level of integration between your eCommerce store and popular social platforms is clear. You’ll be providing a level of convenience to customers that will increase the likelihood of them checking out your products and making purchases. Be sure you’re taking advantage of this and other social media tools and social media eCommerce business trends to drum up new business.
2. Optimize Your Purchasing and Checkout Experiences
Social media isn’t one of our eCommerce business trends that you can take advantage of. The checkout experience is another element that influences how customers feel about your business. It’s one you can enhance by providing increased fluidity when it comes to transactions. For example, there are still some brick-and-mortar stores or pop-up shops that don’t accept credit cards — a mistake that is likely costing them customers, when purchasing a tool to accept credit card transactions would be a worthwhile investment. The same can be said for eCommerce shops. When considering this, ask yourself, “are you providing secure and variable ways for customers or making purchases? Are your limited options sending them to a competitor instead?”
Perhaps the most obvious of our current trends in eCommerce to latch onto here is optimizing the checkout experience by allowing for as many payment methods as feasible for your business. Allowing for multiple payment methods will help to boost conversions.
How, you might ask? Your customers have individual preferences and needs when it comes to how they’re going to pay for products. If you can’t accommodate their preferred payment channel, then there’s a good chance they’ll find another retailer who will.
Checkout Optimization Best Practices
Conversely, having the means to process as many potential customers’ payments will put you in a position to make more sales. A few other best practices you’ll want to follow when it comes to your online checkout experience include:
- Using a clean, simple design for checkout pages.
- Optimizing checkout for mobile devices.
- Enhancing security measures.
- Enabling guest checkout options.
- Include a progress indicator.
The bottom line here is this: the easier it is for people to buy things from you, the more likely they are to spend their money with you.
3. Personalization of the Customer Experience
Sticking with the theme of focusing on your clients, you should also look for ways that you can use personalization to help better the customer experience. Your business’ marketing efforts are an area where personalization can shine. Delivering tailored content based on a prospective customer’s internet activity is more likely to result in a purchase.
You can also take advantage of the latest eCommerce trends by implementing personalization measures directly on your eCommerce pages. Customized product recommendations, for instance, are generally a big hit with potential buyers. They can significantly boost your sales by putting the items a customer is most likely to purchase upfront and center for them to consider.
Such endeavors will require you to have a keen understanding of your customers; this is where tools like eCommerce CRM software will come into play. With the right software solution, you’ll be able to track significant client details, then analyze them to help devise the most accurate personalization approaches possible.
4. Alignment of Multiple Marketing Channels
If you’re like most businesses, then you’re probably marketing your products in multiple places. Cross-channel marketing is great for connecting with a large number of customers and will maximize your results by unifying your online and offline marketing efforts.
By aligning your message across all the channels, you’ll allow your business to maintain consistency in the minds of potential customers. This, in turn, creates a stronger connection with your brand and greater motivation to buy.
Be sure to optimize your channels so that each component propels prospects to another point in your sales funnel and closer to a purchase. Creating cross-platform synergy can lead to almost a complete purchasing funnel. A customer will see a print ad that might prompt them to look up reviews or product demos on YouTube or Google. From there, they might navigate to your website and start checking out products. In the end, these efforts might lead to a purchase or a conversion.
5. A New Emphasis On Ethical Behavior
In the modern era, it’s not always enough to sell a quality product. In recent times, current trends in eCommerce often require businesses to care more than just their product and the bottom line. eCommerce business trends often include the environment and a concerted effort to make the world a better place.
Younger consumers are concerned with how businesses conduct themselves, what stances they take on important societal issues, and whether or not they’re engaging in sustainable business practices that will help preserve the environment.
Adhering to such practices will improve your reputation, and could also help you save money by using fewer resources. Either way, engaging in ethical and sustainable eCommerce business trends will result in a win for you.
Elevate Your Game by Following Our eCommerce Business Trends
These are just some of the latest eCommerce business trends that will allow you to improve your success. Whichever you decide to implement our current trends in eCommerce, remember that your focus should remain on improving the overall experience for your customers and gently guiding them to making a purchase.
Put yourself in your prospects’ shoes and you’ll have an even easier time identifying opportunities to tailor their journeys, optimize for convenience, and improve your bottom line.
